Summer Pasta

Most of the classes which I am taking are held in the morning. I love this because that means that I get to go home and make lunch for myself!

I headed to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, hmm thinking what I could make out of the things in hand. The weather was too hot for something too heavy. I needed something light, fresh, sharp and colorful. So there, I picked up some cherry tomatoes, lemon and basil leaves, closed the refrigerator, hesitated, opened it again and grabbed my block of parmesan cheese. A little cheese won't hurt!

Hazelnut Macarons with Chocolate Filling

Knowing that my best girl friends were coming over, I made macarons again last week.

One of them, H, is surely a macaron expert, she has tasted huuuuge amount of macarons from the most renowned pastry shops around the world! She told me about all the interesting flavors a macaron can carry, say olive, champagne, passion fruit with chocolate which turns out great but tastes like our 薑蔥白切雞 (steamed chicken with ginger and spring onion)! Hm. Maybe I should make some and verify this.

So, I was very inspired and motivated to play with the macaron flavours! I am planning to give my macarons an Asian twist! Goji berries, ginger, dates, lotus seeds, and all sorts of Chinese tea! So please bear with me, I will be making quite a number of posts on macarons in the very near future.

This time I made hazelnut macarons with chocolate cream cheese filling. Love the combination. For those who are planning to make these, do pay attention to the amount of ground hazelnut you put in along with the ground almond. The two nuts have different moisture content, so my suggestion would be to keep them in the ratio of 1:3.

Getting Married!

Sister's getting married! My brother-in-law-to-be and his band brought us all these earlier this week. There was more, a lot more in fact, they invaded and conquered most of our land in the living room! We have so much food at home now and for the last few days, we had 嫁女餅, the colorful Chinese wedding pastries and cakes, for breakfast, tea and late night snack!

My best wishes to the extremely cute, happy and handsome couple! And especially to the bride, I wish that you can eat a lot of 嫁女餅 and still be able to fit into your wedding dress and gowns!